The Cold: Season 25
by BizarreFanfiction.Net
Summary: This season on Total Drama Island, 10 contestants are are being sent out into the cold and made to compete against each other through the struggles of romance and friendship. With a new host and a whole new location, will your character be able to win? [SYOC CLOSED]
1. Pilot

The 'RECORD' button blinked furiously. It sent the color red into the wind, rocketing through the violent swirl of snowflakes and melting the particles midair with its heat as it plunged into the wind. Below-zero conditions threatened to ruin the technology this season. Really, if you looked closely enough at the image on video camera's tiny screen, and if the Camera Guy allowed you to look over his shoulder, you would only be able to make out a mess of static and wind throughout the footage. Daphne Bryan had brown tendrils of hair that soared against the storm and puffed up furiously in this arctic environment. The cold was obviously kicking her butt. With every trudging footstep she took closer, redness was being slapped into her expression, and the wind created two dusty worms out of her lips as she pinched them together to avoid consuming snowflakes. Her eyebrows twitched too frequently. Her relatively small body was all curled and mangled beneath a long, brown marshmallow jacket, and her frantic movement painted a picture reminiscent of an animal struggling toward its habitat.

Camera Guy (his name really was Camera Guy) seemed to be having some problems, and the [REC] button soared about the entire landscape, missing every inch of the shivering Daphne and causing anger to be etched into her bones. Daphne seemed like she was about to cry. Well, she probably would've if her tears weren't at risk of freezing. "Camera Guy! Cam - CAMERA GUY! I'M RIGHT -"

The camera spun in her direction. On the other end of it, Camera Guy's gruff voice could be heard as he rearranged a leaking cigar between his lips and inched his sunglasses subtly up the greasy bridge of his nose. Somewhere around the corner, resting against a mound of powder-white snow, a medic was snoring loud enough to ruin the live recording. Camera Guy yelled at Daphne to get on with the speech she had clenched between her fingers. Daphne's bulbous nose looked on fire in a place where it couldn't have been more likely to freeze and fall to the ground. "Oh! America, get - get ready for the hottest show in the -" Daphne dodged a snowball, and a high-pitched giggle rang off-screen, " - in the WORLD," Daphne continued. Her voice boiled with an anger that she couldn't let loose. A girl named Frieda shrieked with laughter, all tangled in her own cascade of blonde hair.

"This is the day," Daphne went on, "That we release our list of the most EPIC new contestants to have ever been SEEN on Total Drama Island!" Maybe Daphne was talking it up. Just a_ little_. As the air howled on its wild tracks throughout the tundra, somewhere beyond where the snow could be seen by the camera, the fierce roar of an American Black Bear rattled the pine needles and slammed Daphne into a state of fear. The host's whole body ducked low, her hair growing even more frizzy. "The arctic is - is a dangerous place! EVERYONE is at risk here, and -" another roar sent her stifling a scream, "- and TEN new people get to test their luck. Not EVERYONE is up for the challenge. Can - can they survive without being eliminated?"

Camera Guy was starting to feel the cold, too. He'd shed his jacket into the snow an hour earlier, and now it was simply a black heap toasting in the warmth it had soaked up from being on his body. Both Camera Guy and his coat were beginning to become hidden beneath the intensity of the snowflakes. Camera Guy, now clad in blue jeans and an ivory Fruit-of-the-Loom tank top, missed his jacket more than ever. Daphne's speech had degraded into a string of harsh curses. She was now flapping around in the wind like a plucked chicken. "Just cut the tape. Cut it," she shouted at Camera Guy with a red face while she waved her arm like a flag in front of her. "Cut the tape! CUT THE -"

America, from where they sat watching on their couches, heard the show leak into the cheery Total Drama Island theme song. On millions of televisions throughout the Americas, the words _'SEASON 23'_ spun on an invisible axis over their television screens. Stunning. _'Watch - 8/7 Central, January 20th.'_

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><p><em><strong>Woah! Everyone submitted like crazy! Alright, then, let's get this show on the road!<strong>_

**(The next chapter will be about a few of the contestants we'll be seeing in this season, and it will introduce a second round of submissions to this story. In chapter two, you'll be submitting just one character to be a part of the 'backstage' aspect of the show. AKA: medics, substitute hosts, pillow fluffers, set designers, competition organizers... These characters are planned to receive as much attention in the story as the contestants themselves. I don't know why - just to add a bit more variety, I guess? Look out for the second round of submissions in Episode Two!)**

**1. MALE: Andrew Draco**

**2. MALE: ****Simon "Si" Keyari**

**3. MALE: Corey Walker**

**4. MALE: John Wooten**

**5. MALE: Alexei Luka Levi "Lexi; Russian Doll"  
>_<strong>

**1. FEMALE: Ashley "Ash" Ryahn**

**2. FEMALE: Tatiana "Tati" Pagano-Argueta**

**3. FEMALE: Kimara "Kimmy" Williams**

**4. FEMALE: Dahlia "Dahl" Williams**

**5. FEMALE: Bella Adams**


	2. Episode 1

Simon Keyari, formerly known as Simone, stretched his limbs with a series of cracks and pops, the symphony of noises in his head pounding - ka-rump-thump! - with the force of a jumping gorilla. Days like this, where the previous night was composed of a dangerous, magical sex-change imposed upon him by forces he couldn't determine, he usually _did _have headaches, and he wasn't all that bothered by how he used to be Simone Keyari, a pretty girl, not even six hours ago.

Simon was at home right now, and beside his dusty bed, covered densely with tangled red sheets, a calendar hung on a rusted nail and announced to him that today was the day, and I quote, that he had to "Change his pants and underwear for the first time this month," and "feed his dog" for the first time _ever_, and, much less significantly, he needed to pack his belongings and pocket his plane ticket. He was going to be on season 25 of _Total Drama Island._

Maybe after this, his mother, Alexis, the official bearer of the womb in which he boiled for a total of nine months, would finally take his acting talents with a little more than a sneer and a stifled snort caged behind her lips. He would always let her know, "Mom, I'm gonna be famous," and what had she ever responded with? Usually, it was a dismissive wave of the hand as she pulled up the 'Daily Chronicle' on her Mac laptop and explored the whereabouts of _Hot Single Men Near Her_ on the opposite tab.

Alexis The Mom was a woman of virtues and seriousness, all piled up in to one tightwad of a woman with all knobs and harsh edges compiling into a tight brown ponytail and wire-framed tortoise shell glasses that made her appear like even lonelier a woman. She openly despised the Arts, and she told Simon this without ever taking heed of the retorts he would spout in response. His 'buts', 'ifs', and 'and's were met with a contrived smile and a bout of criticism for his delusions. Really, she was the mom who wanted the best for her child, though, at first, it didn't seem so. Simon was at the risk of being disappointed in life by the impossibility of his endeavors. Determination got _some _people places, sure, but not as far as the realm of business would. Alexis, a pencil-pusher, born and raised, loved to cut down far-fetched-ness, and today was the final time that she would drag Simon to her place of work.

Simon loped tiredly down the steps and into his kitchen, where The Super-Mom brewed a tub of Frosted Flakes for her child and simultaneously tapped and plucked at keys on her technology that she had strewn over the marble counter. Paperwork and folders were all carefully divided, saying things like 'Fire Jorge' on their surfaces in big, intimidating crimson ink. Alexis popped a thumb behind her made-up lips to taste the sugar on her nail. Her eyes were brown. She flicked them up at the approaching teenager as Simon strode toward her, hands tucked into his pockets as if the meaning of life lay within his Wrangler blue-jeans.

Her voice was testy as she spoke._ Always_ testy. "You're a boy now. Care to explain why?"

Simon didn't really know what to return with. His blonde eyebrows pinched together in a 'v', and he tested a word by scrunching together his pink lips. He other day, he had been a girl, and now he wasn't, and he really didn't seem to be all that bothered by it. "Yeah, I don't know," he told her. His mother spun toward the refrigerator with a gallon of milk clutched in one hand, and the frill of her skirt jerked with the movement in a wild flurry around her hips. Simon couldn't tell where his father was. He had a black piece of luggage packed and set beside him on the kitchen bar stool where he trained his eyes on Alexis, deciding to pick a joke. "Are you off to see the wizard?"

"I'm off to see my _boss. _I have a thing called a job - a real job, at a bank, doing something that's worth helping me make my living," she spouted. On the word 'real', the icebox slammed shut, and the gallon of milk rocked where it sat vibrating on the cold shelf. Alexis' laptop let out a happy 'ping' loud enough to have been heard from as far as the living room had Simon been glaring at her from all the way in there. Her eyes seemed to brighten at the opportunity to push her point onto her son. "And that's my _boss. _Oh, look. He's letting me know that he's ready to discuss giving me a raise. Do you know what a raise is? It's a thing that is given to people who apply hard work to the jobs that they are assigned in life."

Simon's mind soared to a thought that coaxed a chuckle past his tightly pinched-together lips: the image of a smaller version of his mother with sparkling brown eyes and a halo floating just above the crown of her head, giving every inch of her body a warm glow. _"When I grow up, I want to be a... banker!"_ Cue the dramatic noise of a record idly scratching as the whole dream falls flat. That was how it happened! _His mom_, everyone.

Simon felt his core grow heated, just like the color of his face, turning pinker with every spindle of a doubt that his mom forced into him about his entire profession. Simon clenched his pale fingers into his knees. Someone's echoing footsteps had begun to pound their way towards the kitchen. "Yeah, well," Simon tried, "Mom, what _I_ want to be is _not _— it's not _that_, alright? I want to be a —"

Joey Keyari dug his thick fingertips into his son's shaking shoulder, laying his weight onto that side of Simon's body. "He wants to be an ACTOR!" Joey sang the word, black hair flipping wildly into his face. Simon didn't know how in the world he turned out blonde. "It's a _miracle_, Alexis! Simone is a born Fassbender; a destined Scarlett Johannason two-point-oh!" Joey shook and prodded at Simon's shoulder, but all at once, his motion seemed to stop. Joey sent his eyes down onto the boy, whose blonde tendrils of hair had finally been given a chance to recollect back where they belonged. "Oh. You're a boy, now." Joey's eyebrows peaked like mountains for a moment, and he shrugged with great finality.

"Changes happen, Alexis!" Joey shouted jubilantly, floating from the bar end of the kitchen to the other, where he wrapped his arm over his wife's thin shoulders and pressed her body into his, smacking a wet-sounding kiss against her temple, and thus ruining her hair. She glowered; he returned frivolously with: _"Expect change!"_

**Later that day...**

Simon just hadn't been told what exactly he needed to pack for this Total Drama Island expedition. He had taken with him three notebooks, eight gel pens (to accompany said notebooks), and a silver medallion of a guy named St. Genesius that he mostly had collected for show. The orders by the show's recruiting committee had been to bring with them the bare essential items that they felt like taking. No deodorant - they had that. No clothing, either. Clothing would be provided. The sign-up process was weird. Though these rules had been set for them, it was insisted that the clothing provided would reflect the contestants' individuality.

Therefore, Simon complied with their standards. His meager possessions were compacted into a bag that was shoved overhead in the loading station on the TDI jet by a boy with sandy brown hair hat cascaded over his blue eyes like a curtain when he offered to help Simon out. The guy had a black shirt that said 'BS' in bold, ivory letters over the front, and he wore an official Total Drama Island Backstage Squad identification card around his neck. He wore a hat and a jacket that said he didn't quite belong, like he was different than the contestants that rode in this section of the plane. His card said 'Williams' on the front in a tropical green font.

On the outside of the plane, the tundra rumbled and snowflakes cast themselves wildly in a tornado of blue and grey energy, slapping at Simon's window and etching into him a nervousness that he hadn't known existed before the plane started growing closer to Russia. The other contestants all seemed to have fallen fast asleep on their plane seats, jostling and rocking quietly back and forth with the plane's swift movement. Simon felt odd, looking out at all of them so closely. He liked to come up with snarks that he could use in the far future. Maybe a crude pick-up-line for the girl named Tatiana who had beautiful features but poor breath.

There were many possibilities with the whole thing. Simon cringed at the last idea, though, his shoulders shivering as he cast his gaze toward the window and counted the flakes of pure white that flurried by. It was mean of him to even consider such an insult. _Nevermind_ if it were true.

And now, someone even more intriguing picked over the plane's carpet which was thick with a layer of grey dust that pooled and scuttled around the platinum blonde's beaten-up sneakers. The guy lugged behind him a grey bag that hung open at its main zipper. A folded piece of paper and a t-shirt with an old, forgotten cartoon creature zoomed onto the ground in his wake. His whole body leaned to the side on which his backpack was being carried. He didn't seem able to hold all of the weight with his frame, his pale clover-colored eyes squeezing blatantly with his obvious struggle. Simon twitched in his seat and rose to his feet before the teenager kindly ordered him to sit back down.

Simon felt his own frame shudder as the pale boy trembled beneath the weight. "You sure you don't need any - any help?" He asked, positioning his hand on the armrest of his chair, his other arm waving, beckoning the boy towards him. He didn't know where the boy had come from - all he could really be sure of was that he looked strange. Simon's eyes traveled over his lithe form - he kind of wondered who had allowed the other boy to come here.

The boy's lips quivered with high-pitched, difficult words as he rocked that side of the plane in his conquest to plop down beside Simon as hurriedly as possible. His chest rose and fell with rocky breaths. Simon felt strange for noticing that he had quite a plump mouth, and his lips cracked out into a grin as he geared to snark about something before Alexei blurted a sentence in full Russian-accented tones, commenting on things like the poor lighting in the plane or his heritage in Russia. The one comment that Simon could entirely pick up was the strangest sentiment as Alexei sat down."Where is my - oh, boy, I had _four_ shirts an hour ago."

"Your clothes look _really_ good on the ground over there, though," Simon told him, holding out a hand for effect as his heart settled about this new boy's arrival. "- they compliment the dust bunnies _fan_-tastically." Alexei didn't have to tell Simon his name. It was printed on the bottom of his grey and beaten bag, scribbled in thick Sharpie-marker. Alexei moved to position his luggage in the holding section overhead, but Simon insisted to pry it from the boy's tired hands and do it for him, if not to observe the warm and complimentary smile he got from the Russian in return. Alexei had eyebrows that scrunched above his grin in a cynical way, like he was happy with the person, but he still suspected that they had tried to poison his breakfast.

Alexei laid his head back and extended his arms over his head, ruffling the platinum hair on his crown and crossing his wrists comfortably behind his neck as relaxation settled into his features like an all-new Russian pilgrimage atop his ivory skin. The lines in his face seemed to thin out a little more. Simon would have thought him a girl, perhaps, as even his voice was overly feminine as he asked Simon for his name.

Simon brought his eyebrows together and touched his chin thoughtfully, looking for a creative way to say this. "Hmph. You ever heard of Simon Says, there, Russia?"

Alexei seemed to cringe at the sound of the country's name on Simon's lips. He crooked open an eye, grey, sprinkled with flecks of faded green as he brought it comfortably over the other boy's body. Simon stood at a height even shorter than his own, seemingly still weighted with a remnant of fat from his young age, though angular in the face; skinny around the edges as he tried so hard not to gaze at Alexei's frame. "I _have_. Can you believe it? You must have thought me so sheltered before I told you this." Alexei brought a hand from behind his head; scratched at a spot on his left temple in a show of mild consideration. "Just, um..." he started. There was a smile blooming across his own face - a smile he couldn't stop as he felt a familiar blush drift into his skin and turn his expression a darker color. He covered his mouth with a fleeting movement of his hand. "Just call me Lexi."

* * *

><p><strong>ROUND 2 - OFFICIAL BS SQUAD MEMBERS<strong>

**(Please give a warm welcome to masters of BS - the official Backstage Squad of this season's Total Drama Island. There are more medics than anything, because that is just logical. Three medics, one 'fluffer', one counselor, and one handler for the camera - but only if Camera Guy feels like sharing! Thank you so much for the submissions and the compliments, by the way! These are some of the best characters I've seen personally come out of any similar story - to ****_me_****, anyways - and this includes every OC submission involved in ****_The Cold._**** I obviously cannot do this without you guys, and I am just as excited as you are to see where this thing gets taken. Next episode, we get our official introduction to the wondrous BS Squad, as well as at least a small handful of the contestants.)**

**[Medics] - Nathan Williams; Aubrey "Aub" Baxter; Linda Rodriguez**

**[Fluffers] - Samantha Babette Terrafino; Ibrahima Hostler**

**[Counselor] - Ginger "Ginge" Levin**

**[Camera Handler] - Joey Logan; Camera Man**


	3. Episode 2

Season 25 of Total Drama Island had a mediocre layout, constructed by sweaty teenagers inflicted infinitely by a plague of headphone cords and red splotches muddling up their faces, grease powdering the surface of their nose as, together, the BS squad and its contractors organized and tidied up the entire place. The campsite for the television show, from the plane, could be observed as a circular StoneHedge-like location in the center of a bristled thicket of giant trees that touched the clouds, their tendrils of branches stretching high to brush the graying sky of afternoon. Motions of colors wafted throughout the cold, spinning in the clouds and undulating like the spirits of the dead.

It was all above the BS Squad's heads. The jet that held the contestants sputtered through the sky a number of miles away. Painted on the side of the large hunk of iron, the letters _'TDI, BABY!'_ glistened through the shade of the clouds. The marshmallow mist that loomed above the Homestead promised a heavy blizzard - a happy greeting to welcome all ten of the new arrivals in a shuffle of white, powdery snowflakes that would gnaw at their noses and prickle their ears.

The BS Squad was, at the moment, a bustling collection of eight. The girls, of which there were four in the total of the group, were clad in black sweatpants and heavy boots with spikes on the bottoms built for digging deep past the snow and the barriers of ice with every step that they took into the ground. Their tops were airy, light black shirts with thick writing etched into the centers of them in a joyous yellow paint - BS! - but that particular article of clothing was covered. The female members of BackStage were forced to wrap themselves in thick cocoons of large marshmallow coats covered all in onyx with the BS logo flashing in white on their backs. Dense hoods flopped and flapped in the shuttling wind, snowflakes piling in the fur tresses as each of the girls broke into a sprint ahead of the Central Camp, where Camera Guy and the host of the show organized some of the software and paperwork for the contestants' arrival.

The girls and boys riding in the TDI plane could see a trio of people with fluttering hair, all of them gathering snowflakes in said freezing-up tresses, and all of them looking very unhealthy. About BS' female components, allow me to plunge into detail.

Samantha Terrafino's black hair whipped in the wind and gathered white, melting snowflakes that eased without care into small droplets of water along the edges of her temples, smoothing down her ivory skin and reddening the flesh of her cheeks as, with every thumping step she took ahead of the rest, a warm pant of air was released from between her crimson-shaded lips. Samantha had eyes the color blue that darkened beneath the shadows of the sky and flunked with an almost feverish frequency as powdery fragments of white grouped like homeless people to a shelter along the edges of her flickering eyelashes. Samantha flicked her hair into the wind, her neck twisting the opposite direction and her lips moving in an order to the Counselor of BS, a plump-looking girl whose dark skin lightened with the contrast of the snow. "Ginger, where's the _blankets_?!"

Ginger had a collection of tightly-woven curls that, beneath the flutter of the Arctic, wheezed back and forth with the change of direction in the wind. Her eyes were the color of olives in summer, blinking and streaming a friendly feeling upon anyone she happened to cast her glance toward. Ginger's arms, peppered with freckles, were blanketed in a dense cover of black coat sleeves as she clutched a large collection of multi-colored blankets to her chest and pushed her legs to move her faster over the snow. "I have them!" The counselor breathed roughly, hot air passing plump lips, her feet criss-crossing over misshapen pebbles that riddled the ground. She shrieked after Samantha's frame, and Sam, out of pity, turned her run into a slow jog, slowing to Ginger's pace. "- Blankets are right here," Ginge continued, and she looked like she was gearing up to mention something else when Joey Logan piped up from the back of the group.

"The medics are on the plane," the girl breathed, her words sputtering from her frost-speckled lips like lava spurting from a volcano's heated core. Joey was dainty around the edges, but she stood an inch higher than either of the other girls, brown hair curling around and looking desperate to spring up out of the braid she had used to contain it. It looked that, beneath the giant BS jacket, Joey wasn't clad in the correct Total Drama Island attire that had been provided to her. An onyx Led Zepplin shirt looked wrinkled beneath her scarlet button-down plaid over-wear, the sleeves of said red shirt folded up all the way to her shoulders if one were to look closely enough. Her brown bangs dragged themselves out of the braid and curtained her green-shaded gaze. "You know," she panted, and she struggled to keep up with the jog more than even Ginger, "Aubrey. Linda... Nathan." She said Nathan's name like she was tasting it on her tongue, even as the pinkness of her flesh was being frozen by the chill of the wind. She scraped her wrist, covered by a leather wristband, over her nose, and gripped tighter at the camera held in her arm.

Ginge's ears pricked up at the name of Aubrey. Aubrey and her went way back to the old, pre-Total Drama days, when they both signed up together to play a role in this whole television show business, but she said something else in an attempt to mask this reaction from Samantha who stood beside her. Though Samantha didn't seem to be giving much of a rat's behind about her interests, anyway. "How about Ibrahima?"

Joey audibly sighed. "Eh, he's a little behind - told me something about a joke and a pitcher of goat's milk ending up frozen when he tried to join us out here in the cold. But, speaking of him, I think Daphne might be -"

Samantha released an exertion-filled groan that made it sound a little bit like she was dying and in need of immediate assistance, but she looked alright when Ginge sped up to get a good look at her. A bristle of a snowflake smoothed by Samantha's face, a wisp in the blizzard of white that surrounded Sam's pale face like a halo of cold ivory that, against the blue of her gaze, made her stare into the distance appear sharp as she tightened her eyelids, pressing eyelash to row of painted eyelash. The snowflake dances about and touched the fire red on her face like a ghost. It reached its tiny fingers to caress the smallest, faintest little scar that graced her skin. When Samantha pursed her crimson lips, she mashed white frost particles with it. "_I'm_ a better fluffer than that guy," she snapped crankily.

Ginger, as she walked, had legs that shook and wobbled beneath her frame as she marched on Samantha's tail. The collection of thick, thorny curls wrestled beneath the weight of a million flecks of white snow. "Yeah, well, Samantha," she panted, full lips releasing a rosebush of warmth before her eyes, "_he's _hot." The wind buried into Ginger's hair with brisk fingers as she ran alongside the other two. Scarlet misted in dapples over the flesh of her dark nose, tingling as her knees grew sore beneath her skin, yet she kept on running. She seemed to be the type of counselor this show was going to be needing: a total go-getter, happy-go-lucky, _'let's save the pigeons'_ kind of gal without an attitude. In a sentence, the exact opposite of Samantha Terrafino. But that was alright. Everything, on the outside, seemed to be alright with Ginger Levin.

Joey was looking more foreign than ever in the cold, knobby knees digging at the blizzard, her entire back dramatically hunched. Her nose, all red and stingy, had taken an Irish twist at the tip of it. Several brown sections of her bangs hung wildly in front of her face as she concentrated her eyes on the ground. She looked little different that Christopher Columbus, a $1,000 video camera pressed tightly to her chest in lieu of a map of the seven seas. "Samantha, Ibrahima's been working this job f-for _years._ What makes you think you're the better fluffer?"

Samantha whipped her head in the direction of Joey's voice, eyes threatening to stab the other girl, and ordered, "_Don't_ you fluffing talk to me like that." Ginge would have been lying to herself to say that her arms didn't falter as she struggled to hold onto the blankets. Six feet trudged through the snow, blizzards swirling, engulfing the three members of BS. A shadow the size of a pirate ship cast its darkness over the lumbering plains of the Arctic tundra, the painted metal shouting; looking as if it were an inch from plunging to the ground as it broadcast _'TDI, BABY!'_. The small handful of BS Squad members was led along the edges of the Homestead, jogging toward the living area of team Emperor Penguin.

The trek back to the Central Camp was fortunately assisted by Camera Guy's Jeep, a beaten, black old hunk of metal with boot prints of mud and frost mucking up its sides, the handles frozen shut and the rubber spring fold of the door sticking, unable to move when budged by a person who wasn't the camera master himself. Camera guy looked like a bald head with brown sunglasses to those who viewed him from the rear-view mirror. Warm steam spurted from the conditioners, wafting over all three of the girls, the windows de-frosted _just _well enough. The blankets and water had ben safely deposited at the second of the camps. Now, Joey scooted herself into a seat in the front. Her and Camera Guy couldn't have been less like each other. A bald man with eyes you could never see; a girl who really just wanted to be of some sort of help.

Ginger's mouth moved at a mile a minute. She uttered jumbles of words - "Medics, I think they're all still on the plane. Camera Guy, how-how's Aubrey?" It seemed to be a question that had simmered on her mind for quite a while, steaming, cooking like an old package of Ramen noodles within the water in her head. Snowflakes pummeled themselves into the windows.

"Plane just landed," came Camera Guy's gruff voice. He had a mustache that moved when he talked to people, and wasn't it weird for Samantha to e tracking things like this anyways? She settled her eyes onto her fingernails, picking at them, one hand of digits 'cleaning' the others. She was wearing honey-yellow today. Camera Guy stuck a meaty finger on the button for the windows as the car rocked steadily over the snow, its tires picking over the white mountains and ivory plains. Upon each of the windows being cracked, tiny bursts of the snowstorm came shuttling into the tiny vehicle, and Ginger felt herself hugging into Samantha's arm for a trembling instant. Winter's howl bore onto her like a wolf's toothy snarl. Camera Guy - he just had a covered arm extended to the storm. He motioned at a thing he knew that none of them would ever see. "See, landing platform's way over there," he said, and Samantha felt the need to verbally make his gesture more specific.

"Three miles east," she breathed at him. From where she sat behind him with her boots up on the seat, she could feel his boring glare brushing against her, so she cast a glare right back. Joey's hole-y, gloved-up fingers picked and prodded at a blinking red button on her expensive video camera. She raised the rubber edge to her left eye, index finger settling on _record_, suddenly deciding to begin her film.

Camera Guy pushed the ignition harder than he had before. Ginger caught a glimpse of a twitch in his jaw. Samantha's crimson lips just pulled into a smile at the edge. She crankily told the chubbier girl to 'chill'.

Joey's lips pushed outwards slightly, steam rising from her mouth in a warm puff as she pressed the video camera tighter to her eyes, fingers pushing at tiny knobs, adjusting the focus. "Look, guys," she started as if she were concerned for the entire car and said vehicle's occupants, though she was obviously addressing Ginger. "Things are gonna change. It's Total Drama Island. Twenty-five years?" she asked, and her voice heightened at the end. "Expect change."

The Jeep slowed down to a crawl, its yellow lights steadily blinking before the shadowed grey sky, the rocks all around them casting shades of black, the log cabin that marked the location of the BS Squad's Central Camp coming into their view like and island in the center of a vast ocean of snow. They'd made it to Central Camp in time. From the cabin's glowing, electricity-riddled depths came a running black man staggering happily after the Jeep. His charcoal-colored skin looked darker among the swirl of melting snowflakes, hundreds of them piling, creating tiny mountains of white atop his deep black, close-shaved hair. He didn't work out on the daily, but even from under his large winter coat, his muscles seemed to be panning out. He wore a big, pink feather headband with the white words 'FLUFF' printed into it, all balloon letters and pizzazz around the edges.

Joey acted like she didn't notice the shift in Ginge's posture as Ibrahima ran out, a wide grin etched upon his face and a pitcher of warm goat milk clutched in the hand of the friendly giant. Samantha released a second slightly alarming groan; Camera Guy had immediately worked at rolling down the windows for her partner-in-fluff. Sam huffed and she puffed through her scarlet-colored lips, the anchor tattoo on her hip seeming to tingle. She really wanted to blow this house down. As Joey and Ginger exited the vehicle, they could hear a feminine voice murmur, "Give me a fluffing break."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Samantha, Joey, and Ginger - oh, my! I freaked out over writing this chapter, and next episode, we get this awesome thing where we split up the teams and meet the rest of the BS Squad, and argh. So, to those who submitted people who were supposed to be with one person in particular, I've gotta mention that though we do have hints of 'ships' here in this chapter, not everything is exactly what it seems to be, and things _will _pan out to how you wanted them to! This chapter was so much fun to write, and giving each of these three girls a paragraph of detail was just the most fun thing. I adored putting them together and seeing them work their things out in the cold.**

**EP2 Question: We've seen Samantha, Ginger, Joey, Camera Guy, and Ibrahima. So who's your favorite? **


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